


Looking Glass

by Dagonet (TsukikoCurrier)



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 19:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5176352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsukikoCurrier/pseuds/Dagonet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Eggsy was fifteen, he pulled the coveted picture of his dad out from its hiding place and put it next to his mirror.</p><p>He stood there, posturing himself like he saw the army men do on the telly, and tried to find his dad in his reflection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Glass

          When Eggsy was younger, his mum read him Lewis Caroll stories. He became utterly enchanted by the idea of a world so wholly opposite from his own being so close, and yet so far, on the other side of every mirror. He lived for those half-remembered moments between sleep and waking, the movements from the corner of your eye that you never _quite_ know what they are. He was convinced that the mirrors held the answers, and spent hours trying to push himself through.

          Was there another Eggsy, over there; did he still have his dad? Or was it somehow worse, and this was the good world?

          Unfortunately, the imagination Eggsy had once treasured was quite literally beaten out of him. Dean didn’t take well to meaningless drivel being spouted around him, and fanciful imaginings were certainly that.

          When Eggsy was fifteen, he pulled the coveted picture of his dad out from its hiding place and put it next to his mirror. He stood there, posturing himself like he saw the army men do on the telly, and tried to find his dad in his reflection. His mum could barely look at him some days, and he was certain that was why. He’d started wearing snapbacks to cover his hair, and gone out of his way to slump his shoulders around her, hoping that somehow seeming smaller would keep her from comparing him to his dad too much. It wasn’t like Eggsy had ever known his dad, the only father figure, if you could call him that, that he’d ever known was Dean. Not the best example, to put things lightly; the only thing that mattered was making it through the next day. Repeat.

          So Eggsy locks his door and stands in front of his mirror, trying to find his dad in the bits and fragments he’d left in Eggsy. The set of his jaw, the shape of his eyes, the curves at the tips of his ears; it was all the little things. He was shorter than his dad had been, though his shoulders were just as broad, and he’d never know how close their voices were or the cadences of their laughter because his mum’s grief and Dean’s temper had long ago destroyed any home videos that were laying about. The closest thing he had was a fading memory of being read a bedtime story, one about knights and dragons, and a faint pressure atop his head. If he tried hard enough, he could almost feel breath moving his hair softer and warmer than any summer’s breeze.

          At twenty two Eggsy stands in front of his mirror, convincing himself not to fight back when Dean antagonises him; it’s a daily ritual. He’s the man he imagines his father was, strong and brave and kind. A protector, someone willing to give everything to keep the ones he cares for safe. He has morals and standards that haven’t faded in the wake of Dean’s anger- they’ve only grown stronger in spite of him. He still sees himself as the echo of his father, the remnants that were left in the wake of his death, but now it’s not so much being someone he’s not as it is living up to an ideal. He’d call it a dream, if he had those.

          If he stepped a bit harder than he needed to it had everything to do with his temper, and nothing to do with the medallion bouncing off his chest beneath his shirt.

          Still at twenty-two, Eggsy sits in front of a two-way mirror- not for the first time- and suddenly remembers those stories about Looking Glasses, and Alice going through them to another world. At the moment the two way mirror is exactly that, a portal to another world, to freedom, and Eggsy has no other option. He pulls the talisman from his neck, feeling for all the world like a child wishing on fireflies thinking they were stars, and calls.

          Eggsy, feeling more like Eliza Doolittle than he ever thought he could, stands in front of a three-way mirror in a shop that sold pocket squares more expensive than jumbo jets. His faerie godfather-turned-Higgins stands behind him, having already told him about his father; no real details, but a confirmation of everything Eggsy had believed about his dad. His dad had been a hero, a real one, and not some faceless man who died near somebody important.

          Harry goes a step further, talking of transformations- and just as easily as he had condemned Eggsy’s life choices earlier that very day he is extolling his virtues and potentials. This mirror actually leads somewhere else, and Eggsy swears he’s falling down the rabbit hole; if it’s a dream then it’s a bloody good one, and that’s good enough. He’d follow this white rabbit anywhere.

          Eggsy is drowning, and yet again a two-way mirror is the portal to salvation, to survival- but this time he’s not stuck behind a chair with protocol in the way. He takes his rage out on the mirror; the anger at Dean for beating him and his mum, the frustration of being able to do nothing, the worry he had that without Eggsy there his half-sister would be in danger, the soul-crushing disappointment of knowing that he’s going to fuck up his only chance at _being something_.

          It shatters and when it does not even the death of the girl he barely knew could add a new weight to his soul. He feels renewed, remade; somehow weightless despite every adversity he could see in his future. He was going to take this chance with every fibre of his being and make Harry proud in the way he’d never managed with anyone else.

          Eggsy stands in dressing room 1, awkwardly staring at himself as a stranger knelt between his legs. It was not the first time a stranger had done so, but it was certainly the most unarousing. Harry had left him here to follow Valentine, and considering what little he knew about the situation he couldn’t blame him, but his twenty four hours weren’t up yet and it sounded petty even to himself but he felt gypped. He felt awkward even thinking about wearing this suit, the one that didn’t really exist yet, but thought it was a bit like the dress Alice was given in the Red Court. That made it a bit easier, simpler- it was a matter of necessity and safety, not a complete alteration of his character.

          He’s twenty-three, in the same position he was in nearly a decade ago; staring at himself in a mirror, trying to find bits of his dad in the wake of his inevitable fuck up. Arthur was a prick- and fucking terrifying, pointing a gun at his head and smiling- but Eggsy should have thought for a bit. Roxy had to have thought before firing- he knew her, she wasn’t a mindless follower, it’s why she was going to make an amazing Lancelot. Eggsy puts the medallion on out of habit more than anything else- it no longer bears a promise of freedom but is instead a reminder of what he can and has lost. Potential wasted; an Alice who never went to Wonderland after all.

          He’s angry. He goes to take it out on Dean. Harry stops him. They fight. Eggsy practically _begs_ for forgiveness. Harry leaves without granting it, having told him that everything he’d done was to repay a man that Eggsy never knew. Harry dies. Eggsy kills Arthur.

          Eggsy is twenty-three and a newly minted murderer, staring at himself in the plane’s mirror in the suit that a now-dead man had made for him. And, for the first time, he feels like a whole person; he’s not looking for the shade of his father in his reflection. He wouldn’t be here if not for Harry’s death, if he hadn’t fucked up he wouldn’t have known of Arthur’s betrayal, if he hadn’t crashed the car he wouldn’t have ever called the miracle number, and none of this would have been possible without the death of his father. All of it led back to Harry, the man who had inspired those around him to live to the height of their potential.

          With a moment’s thought Eggsy is suddenly seeing Harry in the mirror. Not behind or beside him, but in him; he’s in the confidence with which he’s holding himself, the style of his hair, the cadence of his voice as he practises being the spy he apparently is now. He feels like the pale imitation of a great man, in nowhere near the same way he always felt about his father, and yet he feels stronger than he ever has. He walks off the plane, looking for all the world at ease in the unfamiliar setting as only one accustomed to being waited upon can, and winks at Merlin before sauntering off.

          He might just save Wonderland after all.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, find me on tumblr at [AgentDagonet](http://www.agentdagonet.tumblr.com)


End file.
